Red Tractor has upgraded its member portal in an effort to reduce assessment preparation time, stress and paperwork burden for farmers and growers.
The updates allow members to take live, geo-stamped photos directly within the portal as compliance evidence, using their mobile phone. Instead of manually recording tasks on paper, the portal automatically captures location, date and time data, creating an instant digital record and demonstrating due diligence.
“This addresses a genuine frustration farmers and growers have shared, which is maintaining paper records for routine tasks that could be evidenced far more efficiently,” said Philippa Wiltshire, Director of Standards and Operations at Red Tractor. “This is about making the portal work around how farms actually operate.”
Further improvements include a new shortlist function which flags ‘high impact’ documents for uploading prior to assessments, plus embedded links to third-party templates, such as Yellow Wellies’ health and safety resources. All improvements intend to focus preparation time where it matters most.
Mrs Wiltshire added: “To help reduce the time spent preparing for audits, we’ve worked with the certification bodies to identify which documents will have the biggest impact on a farmer’s physical assessment. These can be seen on the portal using a simple toggle button.”
She stressed that these changes will not affect access to farm data either by Red Tractor or the portal developer Map of Ag.
“Farmers and growers’ control of data is crucial and remains at the forefront of any enhancements we make to the system. In addition, individuals retain full choice over whether and how they use these features,” she added.
Integrating standards compliance
Beyond its own portal, Red Tractor is working with third-party software providers to integrate standards compliance into systems farmers already use.
New crops checklists developed with MeritAgCheck are due to launch imminently, and discussions are underway with other providers across the sectors, including Lely in dairy.
Jon Stewart, director at MeritAgCheck said: “Having the Red Tractor requirements built directly into MeritAgCheck means farmers can capture the information once and use it for multiple purposes, including their farm assurance. The integration makes the process much smoother for our customers and ensures they stay audit‑ready without extra admin, saving them time that they can re-invest into other activities.”
Mrs Wiltshire added: “We want to work with any company whose reporting could overlap with what’s required for Red Tractor assessments. If we can reduce duplication by working with software already in use, then that’s progress too.”
These latest updates form part of a wide range of improvements Red Tractor is implementing in response to the Farm Assurance Review – from reducing audit burden, to communications and engagement and the use of practical digital tools.
- Guidance on using the new portal features, including ‘how to’ videos can be found on the Red Tractor website: https://redtractor.org.uk/member-portal/